The industry is expected to have 1.8 million unfilled positions by 2020, a 20% increase from 2015 and signs of a skill shortage continue to plague the industry. Businesses don't have enough security professionals in-house, and many lack the necessary skillsets.

Gender inequality pervades the male-dominated tech space, meanwhile, where only 49% of female employees feel both genders are treated equally, according to a new report from Indeed. The lack of diversity extends into cybersecurity, where women make up only 11% of the workforce, reports (ISC)². There is no clear-cut answer for the massive gender gap, but a number of factors seem to be at play. Consider salary, for instance: women earn lower salaries than their male counterparts in cybersecurity and women who identify as minorities make even less.

In an effort to celebrate and shine a light on some of the work women are doing in cybersecurity, Dark Reading is publishing a series of articles that identify women who may not be as well-known in the industry (yet), but who are making key contributions. This first installment includes ten women in various sectors of cybersecurity, who were selected based on recommendations and research. The list is in no particular order.

This is just the first in a series on women you may not know about, but whose work you might see more of in the future. If you know someone who fits the bill, please send us their names and any information about them and their work, to [email protected] We expect to see the list get much longer.

Kelly Sheridan is the Staff Editor at Dark Reading, where she focuses on cybersecurity news and analysis. She is a business technology journalist who previously reported for InformationWeek, where she covered Microsoft, and Insurance & Technology, where she covered financial ... View Full Bio

I know of many in security field that are amazing and beautiful, they do not come out since doing so can get you targeted online, just like in real life. So the numbers of women in the industry are deflated.

Kelly, I think the article got off on the wrong foot. The stated goal of the article was to highlight the achievements and contributions of 10 individuals; however, as framed, we can't see the trees for the forest. Had you left out the tripwire iconography and phrases, you'd have provided 10 exemplary role models to encourage other individuals (including those that happen to be female), by showing what can be achieved by excellence.

As it is, the introduction suggested this would be yet another ad hominem (literally), diatribe - making it hard to get past that, to objectively consider the 10 profiles.

Objectivity, curtesy, respect for varied perspectives and technical competency of the participants are attributes which drew me to Dark Reading. Politics, posturing and zero-sum agendas already dominate too many forums.

I think the nature of the survey quoted provides an example of how easily we might drift (or be nudged), from substance to perception. Whenever statistical distributions for responses to questions about how someone feels are quoted, it's invariably a matter of the subjective dressed in objective clothing. Such data can be useful in targeting "average consumer" preference. As a guide to evaluating and improving policies which will impact individuals - they are as likely to mislead as inform.

100% agree. Now if a woman doesn't get a promotion, it isn't because the other person put in more hours, did more work, or was more qualified, it gets spun into "sexism". Now all the focuse is on the genitals, not the work.

Thank you for sharing your insight. The idea behind this piece was to highlight women in security who are doing cool projects and exploring new research, but are still relatively unknown. Our goal was to acknowledge these women for their work and share it with a larger community.

For almost a decade I have enjoyed working as a cybersecurity consultant for many large, some of the largest, US/global enterprises. Often I spend weeks, sometimes even months, on-site with customers working with their information security and other IT personnel to accomplish a common goal. I'm often given a badge, laptop, and even parking permits. I attend all the major conferences like DEFCON, BSides, and others that would reveal too much about my geographic location to enumerate.

Not once have I witnessed gender based bias. I have, on the other hand, heard women claim sexism after having been treated poorly by people who also treat men poorly. On occasion I have been a witness to said sexism, but did not read it that way at all. This has steadily become more prevalent over the last 10 years as the divisions within the country have grown wider. I, like you, am anecdotal- you can write me off because I'm just 1 person on the Internet. But all I want is to put one idea in your mind:

Reading an article insinuating that women are suppressed or somehow maligned in cybersecurity does nothing to help encourage them to become involved. Opinionated hit pieces playing into the popular myth that women are somehow under the thumb of men is not only false, it's insulting, patronizing, and dare I say, sexist toward women.

Excellent article on women in cyber security. But for some reason you missed one of our epic women in Cyber Security, Michele Fincher. She has been a legend in our field for several years as a trainer, speaker, and panelist for cyber security. She has written the book on Phishing and SpearPhishing, Phishing Dark Waters, along with her team mate Chris Hadnagy. She speaks regularly at mulitple cyber security conferences, and helps lead the Social Engineering Village at DEFCON every year. She is one of the top 5 women leaders in Cyber Security. thx/elvis

Online attackers are constantly developing new, innovative ways to break into the enterprise. This Dark Reading Tech Digest gives an in-depth look at five emerging attack trends and exploits your security team should look out for, along with helpful recommendations on how you can prevent your organization from falling victim.

An exploitable vulnerability exists in the verified boot protection of the Das U-Boot from version 2013.07-rc1 to 2014.07-rc2. The affected versions lack proper FIT signature enforcement, which allows an attacker to bypass U-Boot's verified boot and execute an unsigned kernel, embedded in a legacy i...